Kiowa

The Kiowa are a southwestern Native American people of the Tanoan language family. The Kiowa are considered among the tribes that best [Page 1293]characterize the Plains Native American culture, one of the last of the Native American cultural groups to develop in the early 1600s. They were known for their raids among other Native American tribes and Euro-American settlers before their settlement on federal reservations in the mid-1800s. Most modern Kiowa reside in and around Oklahoma and seek to preserve their cultural and linguistic heritage.

The Kiowa were historically a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture whose oral histories place their origin in the northern United States along the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in present-day Montana. Southward migration brought them to their traditional territory in western Oklahoma, northeastern New Mexico, and the Texas Panhandle. Their linguistic similarities with the Pueblo suggest a possible common heritage. Kiowa culture was nomadic, and camps could be quickly packed and transported. They generally lived in tepees, which are easily portable. The Kiowa used dogs and, later, horses to transport goods loaded onto travois.

The buffalo were their primary source for food, clothing, housing, tools, and goods. They supplemented their buffalo meat diet with plants, roots, and berries. Males were warriors, hunters, and guards. Females cooked, tanned hides, made clothing, gathered food, and packed or set up camps. Tools and weapons included the bow and arrow, spear, tomahawk, knife, axe, and needles. Horses became central to the Kiowa's Plains culture shortly after their adoption from the Spanish and other Native American tribes.

Extended families were the main unit of social organization, and clans were nonexistent. A head chief provided overall political leadership, but there were also camp leaders and war chiefs. Military society members were known as Dog Soldiers. Social organizations were based on age groupings. Traditional dress consisted of breech-clouts and shift-style dresses of animal skins, leggings, moccasins, jewelry, and fur coats in winter. Hair was worn long, whether loose or in braids. Beadwork was an important traditional Kiowa art form.

The Kiowa practiced a polytheistic religion based on animism and sought supernatural assistance or appeasement. Religious ceremonies also served social functions, helping unify the tribe. The Sun Dance, held in the early summer months, was the most important of the tribal ceremonies. Peyote worship was also practiced. Oral tales and pictographic calendars preserved tribal histories.